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I'm a Mexican, mom, wife, blogger, ESL teacher, and translator.
My blog is dedicated to sharing all the fascinating things about Mexico that have nothing to do with politics, violence, and drug cartels, I hope you will gain a deeper understanding about my country and learn to love it as much as I do.

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The other day I was looking at my Pinterest boards and I suddenly realized that it’s amazing how much Mexico has influenced other cuisines from all over the world.

However, I have also noticed there’s a belief that throwing some chili powder and cheese on a dish makes it Mexican, but that’s not very accurate at all.

As always, I am here to enlighten you and share some very surprising facts about the best kind of food there is- Mexican food!

10 Surprising Facts About Mexican Food

There are a few Mexican dishes that are famous, like tacos, guacamole, tamales, and enchiladas. It is true that those are very popular in Mexico too, but they are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to real Mexican food.

There so many dishes and ingredients, it’s almost impossible to know them all. In fact, authentic Mexican cuisine is very different from all the Mexican-inspired food that you normally get in any place that is not Mexico.

To give you an idea, take a look at this list of surprising facts about Mexican food.

Stuffed chili pepper-Source: myheartofmexico.wordpress.com

1. Mexican cuisine is a rainbow

Every single Mexican dish is a mix of Native American and European ingredients and flavors with hints of African and Middle Eastern influence. This makes for an explosion of flavors that is truly surprising. It definitely takes a lot more than chili powder and cheese to cook like a Mexican.

Typical Mexican dishes

2. Mexican cuisine is infinitely varied

There’s a whole lot more than just tacos in Mexico. The country is enormous, and so is the variety of food. There is a completely different kind of cuisine in every region.

For example, black mole sauce and tlayudas are typical of the southeastern province of Oaxaca. And in the Yucatan peninsula, you will find dishes like cochinita pibil and panuchos, which are traditional there.

So which is the most Mexican kind of food? Honestly, it depends on where in Mexico you are!

3. Mexican cuisine was influenced by immigrants

There many traditional dishes and ingredients that were adopted in Mexico after each wave of immigration.

For example, pastry-making and confectionery turned popular after two French invasions in the 19th century. Later, the arrival of more French and Italian immigrants brought other new ingredients, such as pasta and strong cheese.

In the central province of Hidalgo, Cornish settlers brought their traditional pasty, which later became the Mexican paste. In the coast, Caribbean influence is also noticeable in the local cuisine, with plantains and coconut oil.

In the 19th century, Chinese immigrants made rice a popular food and Lebanese arrivals made great contributions to Yucatan cuisine.

As you can see, Mexican food is really a melting pot of nationalities.

4. Mexican cuisine has a lot of vegetables in it

The main ingredients of Mexican cuisine are not cheese and meat, but vegetables. Ancient Mexican dishes were mostly veggie-based, and that has not changed too much.

Many typical dishes require corn, chili peppers or beans, and there’s also a whole parade of widely used vegetables that you probably have never heard of, such as quelites (lamb’s quarters), quintoniles (amaranth greens), huauzontles, romeritos, chayotes, cactus, and verdolagas (purslane), just to name a few.

Most of these are wild greens, and they are eaten cooked in spicy soups and stews.

5. Mexican cuisine has given many delicious gifts to the world

Mexico has contributed greatly to all the world’s cuisines with ingredients such as corn, tomatoes, avocados, cacao, beans, chili peppers, and vanilla. Would you be able to live without chocolate or vanilla? I didn’t think so. You’re welcome!

Native Mexican ingredients

6. Mexican cuisine has some strange ingredients

You might be surprised to know that Mexicans eat flowers.

For example, flores de calabaza (squash blossoms) are great in soups and quesadillas. Flor de izote (yucca flowers) and gasparitos (coral tree flowers) are cooked in soups, stews, and even tamales.

Other strange ingredients are native mushrooms, like huitlacoche (corn smut), which is used as a filling for quesadillas.

And finally, the most terrifying ingredients of all are insects. You read that right! Mexican appetizers include roasted grasshoppers, maguey worm tacos, escamoles (ant larvas caviar), or ahuautle (salty mosquito-eggs). Hungry, anyone?

7. Mexican cuisine requires special utensils

There are several exclusively Mexican kitchen tools that are required to make authentic Mexican dishes.

A molcajete, for example, is not a dish. It is a small mortar that is used to grind spices or ingredients for salsa. Another is the molinillo, which is good for making frothy chocolate. There is also the comal, a flat pan which you need to properly make and heat tortillas.

These utensils have been used in Mexican kitchens for centuries to this day. Other traditional tools are almost no longer in use, like the metate, which was a large stone mortar that was used to grind corn to make flour.

Metate source: oaxaca.wikispaces.com

8. Mexican cuisine represents an entire culture

Food is extremely important in Mexico. People and families define themselves by the dishes they make and eat, and everybody has a traditional food they love. Food is present in movies, books, and songs.

I especially recommend the book “Like Water For Chocolate”, by Laura Esquivel. It will help you understand Mexican people’s relationship with food, and it’s also a fascinating novel.

Family dinner

9. Mexican cuisine is a world treasure.

In 2010, Mexican Cuisine became a part of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The only cuisines on that list are French and Mexican. That’s how amazing Mexican food is.

10. Mexican food is best outside of a restaurant

Until recently, there was no such thing as high Mexican cuisine. Fine and authentic Mexican dishes are served in establishments across the country, but there is no Mexican restaurant on this planet that can compete with homemade food cooked by a Mexican mom or granny.

The best and most authentic dishes are made by ordinary people in little eateries or humble homes. Recipes are passed down across generations as part of a family’s heritage and dishes are gradually transformed and embellished. This is what makes Mexican food so special.

Cooking at home

Feeling hungry yet? Run to nearest Mexican restaurant. Or better yet, come over to my beautiful country and enjoy the most colorful and delicious food in the world!

Do you like Mexican food? Were you surprised by these facts? Leave a comment!

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fabiolaofmexico
I'm a Mexican, mom, wife, blogger, ESL teacher, and translator.
My blog is dedicated to sharing all the fascinating things about Mexico that have nothing to do with politics, violence, and drug cartels, I hope you will gain a deeper understanding about my country and learn to love it as much as I do.

The thing about the veggies is so true. I didn’t really like it as a kid but when I moved to San Antonio I tried a lot of new things and was shocked by how many healthy variarions there are. Thanks for sharing this

Yes. This. I had a friend growing up who was Mexican by way of El Paso and through her cooking I learned so much about Mexican food. Growing up on the east coast so many view Mexican food as tacos. So sad for them. Now that we live in southern California I get some great authentic Mexican food.

I loved reading this!! My husband grew up in Arizona and we honestly get the best Mexican food there- I love it! We look forward to going back every year and getting fresh tamales. Now I feel pretty hungry after reading this post :)!

This is such a great post! It is so hard for people to wrap their mind around it sometimes – when Mexico as a country is really a big place – so shouldn’t surprise us that it is so diverse. I was lucky to have a good friend growing up whose mama was Mexicana, so I experienced good, authentic food from your country earlier on. What a blessing. Love all your points here and they make me sooooo hungry!!

Such an interesting post! I love learning about your country. I was surprised to find out how much your country’s food was influenced by other cultures and how different it can be depending on the region. One thing I would be interested in learning is how to make homemade authentic enchilada sauce. I have tried it several times, but it came out too bitter. It seems like the recipes from the US are tomato sauce based instead of chile based. How do you make yours? I would love to read a post about it. Thanks for all the interesting information about Mexican cuisine!

Ahh! I loved “Mexican-inspired” food, so I wanted to try a local authentic place. I loved their tostadas partly because they had vegetables! Very interesting to see how Mexican food has been influenced and how varied it is. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised- I’m Filipino, and it’s like everybody has their own way of making a dish! Thanks for sharing!